Dive into the new Google Earth — As you read this, I am at the beautiful California Academy of Sciences, announcing the launch of the newest version of Google Earth. This launch is particularly special to me because it marks the moment when Google Earth becomes much more complete — it now has an ocean.

Apple Planning Video-Call iPhone — Recent stories on Apple's iPhone patent have focused on Cupertino's threatened legal action against Palm, which is launching the iPhone-like Pre smartphone. But a closer examination of the Apple patent yields much more interesting news.

IE slips further as Firefox, Safari, Chrome gain — The amount of market share commanded by Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser has dropped for the seventh consecutive month. — Internet Explorer now has 67.55 percent of global browser market share, a drop of over seven percentage points in a year …

Soon, Majority of Web Users Will No Longer Use IE — It might take a few more years, or it might happen suddenly, but trends appear to indicate that the time when Internet Explorer is used by the majority of people on the web will soon come to an end. — New numbers from analytics firm …

Google: “We're Not Doing a Good Job with Structured Data” — During a talk at the New England Database Day conference at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Google's Alon Halevy admitted that the search giant has “not been doing a good job” presenting the structured data found on the web to its users.

Despite iTunes Accord, Music Labels Still Fret — Last month the music industry and Apple, long uneasy partners, seemed a picture of harmony when they agreed on new terms for pricing on iTunes, Apple's online music store. — Behind the scenes, however, the relationship remains as tense and antagonistic as ever.

Passport RFIDs cloned wholesale by $250 eBay auction spree — Video demo shows you how — Using inexpensive off-the-shelf components, an information security expert has built a mobile platform that can clone large numbers of the unique electronic identifiers used in US passport cards and next generation drivers licenses.

Revver and Pageflakes go dark for days — Both the video-sharing site Revver and the personalized start page service Pageflakes have been down since last Thursday, January 29. As of this writing, that is more than three-and-a-half days of straight downtime.

Yahoo Shuts Down Publisher Network RSS Ads — The next Yahoo program to be discontinued are the Yahoo Publisher Network RSS ads. Here is an email I just received from Yahoo: … Yahoo launched the RSS ads back in November 2005. I assume it never took off and they have now decided to drop that portion of the overall product.

Windows XP still powering 71 percent of business PCs — More than two years after the Windows Vista launch, XP is still the dominant business PC operating system in North America and Europe. — Windows Vista “finally appears ready to dethrone XP” as the operating-system choice for enterprise PCs …

Google's flub: Do we have a Web monoculture too? — Google had a rough weekend and a human error caused the search giant to list the entire Web as malware for an hour or so. The screw-up is likely to raise questions about the risks of having a monoculture dependent on any one technology supplier.

Porn interrupts Super Bowl broadcast in Tucson — Tucsonans watching the Super Bowl got more action than they bargained for when a short clip from an adult movie channel interrupted Comcast's feed with full male nudity during the final moments of the game. — Officials at Comcast …

Layoffs mean more than lost wages for H-1B visa holders — For the two out-of-work engineers, it's a race against time. They've lost their Silicon Valley jobs and need to quickly find others at a time when companies everywhere are tightening their belts. — Both are Indians whose advanced degrees …

IBM report: Vulnerabilities still going unpatched — More than half of the security vulnerabilities disclosed during 2008 had no patches available from the vendor by the end of the year, according to a report released on Monday by IBM's X-Force research group.

Want a Wireless Plan with Your Netbook? — PC makers and telcos are pairing up to offer discounted devices with wireless data plans, but success could come at the expense of feature-laden phones — Stripped-down computers known as netbooks have been taking a bite out of laptop sales for the better part of a year.

While in Korea download a 120-minute film in just 12 seconds! — Korea is to acquire the world's fastest wired and wireless Internet service at 10 times the speed of the current service by 2012. The government and the communications industry plan to invest some W34 trillion over the next five years in the project.

Searches for e-books double — Over the last year UK interest in e-books has grown significantly, with searches for ‘ebooks’ doubling between January 2008 and 2009. There are four main e-book readers currently available: the Amazon Kindle, the Sony Reader, the Borders iLiad, and the Bookeen Cybook V3.